Joshua Homan

Dr. Joshua Homan — Senior Research Fellow

Neotropical Anthropology Laboratory (NAL)

Director, Undergraduate Studies, Department of Anthropology

Lecturer in Anthropology, University of Kansas

Dr. Joshua E. Homan is a sociocultural anthropologist whose research and teaching illuminate the ethnology of western Amazonia and the Andes–Amazon interface, with particular expertise in the Indigenous frontier worlds of northern Peru. As a Senior Research Fellow of the Neotropical Anthropology Laboratory, he contributes to NAL’s mission of rigorous, community-engaged scholarship that bridges ethnography, language, history, and applied research to address the contemporary pressures facing Indigenous societies, including extractive economies, state intervention, and interethnic conflict and cooperation.

Homan’s scholarship examines how Indigenous peoples mobilize identity, knowledge, and social relationships in regions shaped by long histories of missionization, resource extraction, and shifting political authority. His work questions fixed ideas about ethnicity by highlighting ethnogenesis as a continuous social process created through translation, alliances, family ties, ritual skills, and daily interactions at the edges of Indigenous lands. Methodologically, he is known for integrating ethnographic and linguistic competency with archival and historical inquiry and for developing experimental and participatory approaches that extend the analytic reach of contemporary Amazonian anthropology.

He earned his Ph.D. in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of Kansas (2018), defending with honors a dissertation titled Inga Rimakkuna: Indigenous Frontiers in the Pastaza Basin, Peru. The project draws on extended fieldwork in Loreto along the Pastaza, Huasaga, and Manchari Rivers, and on historical sources spanning the Jesuit era to the present, to show how Indigenous frontier zones generate new social formations and emergent ethnic boundaries through contact, movement, and relational practice. He also holds an M.A. in Sociocultural Anthropology (University of Kansas, 2011), with thesis research on the political and cultural dynamics of the ayahuasca boom in western Amazonia, and a B.A. in Anthropology (University of Kansas, 2006).

Homan has conducted fifteen months of intensive ethnographic fieldwork in remote riverine communities of northern Peru and has collaborated with Indigenous federations, including FEDIQUEP (Federación Indígena Quechua del Pastaza). His language competencies, including fluent Spanish and advanced proficiency in Quechua and Inga, enable fine-grained ethnographic analysis in one of Amazonia’s most linguistically diverse and politically complex regions. His research is supported by competitive fellowships and grants, including a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship (Peru) and two consecutive years of FLAS support for advanced Indigenous language training, as well as repeated departmental recognition through the Carroll D. Clark Award.

Homan’s publications include scholarship on the local impacts of the ayahuasca boom in The World Ayahuasca Diaspora (Routledge), as well as substantial contributions to Field Museum Rapid Biological and Social Inventories in Peru that integrate ethnohistory, biocultural heritage, and community-centered documentation for conservation and Indigenous rights initiatives. His museum and public anthropology work includes collaborative cultural heritage projects in the Peruvian Amazon, including contributions to community-centered revalorization efforts associated with the Museo Regional of the Universidad Nacional de San Martín in Tarapoto.

At the University of Kansas, Homan serves as Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies (2019–present), teaching core courses including Varieties of Human Experience and guiding curriculum, advising, and assessment for one of KU’s largest undergraduate programs. His administrative leadership and pedagogical commitment are integral to NAL’s training mission, particularly in mentoring students to pursue ethically grounded research that is linguistically competent, historically informed, and attentive to Indigenous sovereignty.

At NAL, Homan's research focuses on important topics like Amazonian ethnology, Indigenous governance, and new research methods, including computational and experimental ethnography. His work exemplifies the laboratory’s commitment to anthropology as a collaborative practice that generates knowledge with and for communities while advancing high-level scholarly contributions to Amazonian studies.